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Third Battle of Ypres

This was a campaign fought between July and November 1917 and is often referred to as the Battle of Passchendaele, a village to the north-east of Ypres which was finally captured in November. It was an attempt by the British to break out of the Ypres salient and capture the higher ground to the south and the east from which the enemy had been able to dominate the salient. It began well but two important factors weighed against them. First was the weather. The summer of 1917 turned out to be one of the the wettest on record and soon the battlefield was reduced to a morass of mud which made progress very difficult, if not impossible in places. The second was the defensive arrangements of concrete blockhouses and machine gun posts providing inter-locking fire that the Germans had constructed and which were extremely difficult and costly to counter. For 4 months this epic struggle continued by the end of which the salient had been greatly expanded in size but the vital break out had not been achieved.

The Battle of Langemarck

This took place between 16th-18th August, 1917 and was the second general attack of 3rd Ypres. Although it did not rain during the two days of the battle itself there had been plenty of it in the preceding days and in many places the battlefield was a quagmire. On the left of the attack in the north-west of the Ypres salient there was considerable success,  especially for the French Army which attacked on the left of the British, but the attack on the Gheluvelt Plateau, due east of Ypres, met determined German resistance and the early gains were soon reversed.

On 17th August, 14th Division moved into the new front line from Clapham Junction and then along the Menin road. 42 Brigade were on the left of this line and the 9th Rifle Brigade battalion took over advanced posts on the forward slopes of Westhoek Ridge. Their positions came under heavy shell fire on 18th August and part of the battalion HQ on the Menin Road was destroyed. The shelling intensified that night and although the expected infantry attack did not materialise, this same level of shell fire, a good deal of which was gas shells, continued for the next two days. 9th Rifle Brigade were relieved during the evening of 20th August and moved back to the Ritz dugouts but even here the enemy shell fire took its toll particularly during the night  of 21st August when the nearby battery positions of the Royal Field Artillery were heavily shelled. Alfred Quirk was killed on 18th August.